Ukrainian journalist Illia Ponomarenko at the World Village Festival 2024

Illia Ponomarenko is one of the most internationally known Ukrainian war journalists. In this programme he addresses the issue of information warfare in conflict and explains the significance of communication in Ukraine’s struggle for survival. He also describes his own role, as well as the importance of real-time social media communication and crowdsourcing.
Ponomarenko is interviewed by Yle’s journalist Justas Stasevskij.
Illia Ponomarenko has covered the Russian-Ukrainian war since 2014. Has visited war zones in Ukraine several times with Ukrainian combat forces. Ponomarenko has been a prominent figure on social media since the beginning of the Russian invasion and currently has over 1.2 million followers on X (formerly Twitter). Ponomarenko was involved in founding the Ukrainian English-language media outlet The Kyiv Independent.
The program was produced by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.